


Shadows

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [6]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Introspection, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This case has let Mulder see Scully in a new light, and he's not quite sure what to make of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows

_“Hey, Scully. Do you believe in the afterlife?”_  
_“I'd settle for a life in this one.”_  
_“Have you ever seen the Liberty Bell?”_  
_“Yes.”_  
_“You know, I've been to Philadelphia a hundred times, and I've never seen it.”_  
_“You're not missing much. It's just a big bell with a big crack, and you have to wait in a long line.”_  
_“Yeah, but I'd really like to go.”_  
_“Why now?”_  
_“I don't know. How late do you think they stay open?”_

It’s not a date.

Sure, the case is over and they’re off the clock, so it’s not technically a work-related excursion either.

Doesn’t make it a date.

Wanting to go check out the bell is not the only inexplicable impulse he’s finding himself saddled with at the moment, but it’s the only one he can allow himself to act on, so he’s going with it. Dragging Scully - sporting that red suit and that little “humoring my lunatic partner” grin - off to see the Liberty Bell when all she probably wants is to drive the two and a half hours back home and crawl into bed is probably not the greatest idea he’s ever had. But if he doesn’t do that, he’s going to lean over and kiss her instead, and that would be a  _really_ bad idea.

So, bell it is.

But it’s  _not_  a date.

What it is, however, is much too late in the evening. Of course the damned thing is closed. Mulder pulls over to the curb on Market Street and throws the car into park.

“Yep,” Scully says, again with that wry little smile. “Still a big bell, with a big crack in it.”

“Yeah, but no waiting.” He gets out of the car and walks over to the glass-enclosed display, not bothering to see if she’ll follow.

Nonetheless, he smiles when he hears her shoes clicking on the sidewalk behind him moments later. She catches up and stands there quietly at his side, somehow still exuding the unadulterated confidence that has taken over her demeanor these past few days. He’s never seen that side of her before, and he isn’t sure what to make of it. However,  _it_ is making  _him_  have all sorts of thoughts and feelings he is not at all prepared to analyze too deeply just now.

She was completely in her element, leading the pre-raid briefing without an ounce of self-consciousness, taking absolutely no shit from those military cops (or whoever they were), lying her ass off to the witness…

Okay, that last one bothered him a little bit at first, but he does have to admit she got results. It’s almost better that she missed every single opportunity to witness the spectral phenomena firsthand, came in the room too late to see Lauren’s attacker get his throat crushed while suspended in midair, got locked out of Dorlund’s office while Graves’s ghost was sending things flying all over the place. She saw nothing to question her conviction that this was a case she could get a firm grip on, and without any of those doubts in her abilities or her perception of reality, boy did she thrive.

Not that she won’t be insufferably smug the next time they have to deal with a haunting or something similar. Still, he thinks it will probably be worth it.

On the other hand, seeing her in this new light… well, it’s not like he hasn’t already mastered the art of emotional repression. He’ll manage.


End file.
